t your Conscience has since given this Line some Correction;
for there you have taken off a little of its Edge; it there runs only
thus----

The Play'rs _and I, are luckily no Friends._

This is so uncommon an Instance, of your checking your Temper and taking
a little Shame to yourself, that I could not in Justice omit my Notice
of it. I am of opinion too, that the Indecency of the next Verse, you
spill upon me, would admit of an equal Correction. In excusing the
Freedom of your Satyr, you urge that it galls no body, because nobody
minds it enough to be mended by it. This is your Plea----

_Whom have I hurt! has Poet yet, or Peer,
Lost the arched Eye-brow, or_ Parnassian _Sneer?
And has not_ Colley _too his Lord, and Whore?_ &c.

If I thought the Christian Name of _Colley_ could belong to any other
Man than myself, I would insist upon my Right of not supposing you meant
this last Line to Me; because it is equally applicable to five thousand
other People: But as your Good-will to me is a little too well known, to
pass it as imaginable that you could intend it for any one else, I am
afraid I must abide it.

Well then! _Colley has his Lord and Whore!_ Now suppose, Sir, upon the
same Occasion, that _Colley_ as happily inspired as Mr. _Pope_, had
turned the same Verse upon _Him_, and with only the Name changed had
made it run thus--

_And has not_ Sawney _too his Lord and Whore?_

Would not the Satyr have been equally just? Or would any sober Reader
have seen more in the Line, than a wide mouthful of Ill-Manners? Or
would my professing myself a Satyrist give me a Title to wipe my foul
Pen upon the Face of every Man I did not like? Or would my Impudence be
less Impudence in Verse than in Prose? or in private Company? What ought
I to expect less, than that you would knock me down for it? unless the
happy Weakness of my Person might be my Protection? Why then may I not
insist that _Colley_ or _Sawney_ in the Verse would make no Difference
in the Satyr! Now let us examine how far there would be Truth in it on
either Side.

As to the first Part of the Charge, the _Lord_; Why--we have both had
him, and sometimes the _same_ Lord; but as there is neither Vice nor
Folly in keeping our Betters Company; the Wit or Satyr of the Verse! can
only point at my Lord for keeping such _ordinary_ Company. Well, but if
so! then _why_ so, good Mr. _Pope_? If either of us could be _good_
Company, our being professed Poets, I hop